


Tell Me When

by gymwrites



Category: Gymnastics RPF
Genre: F/F, raistafina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 21:03:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11089890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gymwrites/pseuds/gymwrites
Summary: Aly Raisman has an important question for Aliya Mustafina on her birthday.





	Tell Me When

_The minute I heard my first love story_  
_I started looking for you, not knowing_  
_how blind that was._

_Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere._  
_They’re in each other all along._  
  
_Rumi_

* * *

 

“Tell me when.”

Aly Raisman looks up expectantly at her other half, on whose lap her head rests. Her cheeks are flushed; it must be the Tuscan summer heat. Or the four? five? glasses of celebratory champagne circulating through her blood. She uses the back of her hand to rub her bleary eyes. Upon opening them, Aly returns to admiring the view above her: a perfectly shaped chin and nose, and impossibly thick eyelashes tilted against the husky tinge of a sky welcoming nightfall.

The Russian for whom Aly’s question was intended glances down at the girl laid out on the snug balcony couch they share. Her lips curve into a small smile. “When?” Aliya Mustafina murmurs, skating the tips of her fingers over smooth skin. As she traces figure eights around Aly’s bare shoulder, her eyes turn towards the cluster of lights etching out Florence’s skyline. “It is good I hide the Stolichnaya from you, Aly,” she adds amusedly. One whiff of that stuff and Aliya would have been holding someone less conscious than a sack of potatoes in her arms.

Though her sight is fixed on the breathtaking cityscape, Aliya feels the American still staring at her intently from below. The smile on her face grows.

Aly shivers at the sensation of Aliya’s touch. Pushing aside the fuzziness in her mind, she determines to get a proper answer out of the Russian. It is, after all, her birthday. 

“Tell me when you fell for me,” Aly repeats. Her breath catches in her throat as Aliya skirts dangerously close to a sensitive spot at the base of her neck.

The other girl laughs lightly. Aliya knows exactly where this is headed. “Aly. You know when.”

Somehow, Aly pushes herself up into a sitting position. The Russian’s wandering fingers fall away. Aly swivels to face Aliya square on. Grinning, she persists. “I like hearing it.”

Aliya relents with an exaggerated sigh. She wrests her gaze away from the iconic cupola rising up from the Duomo to focus on the girl who lights a fire in her just by flashing that silly grin. Dark, silky ringlets of hair tumble over the Russian’s cream chiffon top. Wrapping one of them around her finger, Aliya tilts her head to the side thoughtfully. “At 2010 Worlds. Even Tanya think I lose my mind. But I already know then no one is more beautiful.” She pauses, and with a wicked smile adds, “Or more scared of me.”

“What? Come on. I was not scared of you!”

Aliya maintains a veneer of seriousness on her face, but a spirited twinkle erupts in her eyes. “Da, eto pravda. I look you, and you not look at me. I say hello, and you not say anything back. I think you are different. A strange girl. Strange for American to not be…” Aliya trails off, then waggles her arms excitedly, doing her best impression of an over-friendly cheerleader hopped up on way too many caffeinated gummy bears. 

“Excuse me?” Aly makes as if to slap her indignantly, but the Russian catches her hand mid-air, brings it to her lips and kisses it gently. Aly tries, not very hard at all, to struggle free. “You and your weird ideas about Americans. And no, I was _not_  scared.” 

Aliya conveys disbelief with a sideways, mocking grin.

“Okay, I may have been slightly - and I cannot stress that enough - _slightly_ intimidated by you. But being intimidated and scared are two completely different things,” Aly continues lamely. “I was just trying to figure out why you kept…” she struggles for a bit, “…  _hovering_ over me during the competition.”

“What means, ‘hoover’?”

“Hover, not hoover,” the American corrects with a laugh, loving the way Aliya’s nose wrinkles when she repeats unfamiliar sounds. “It means you kept standing really close to me for no apparent reason.” 

“I always have reason, Raisman.” The overtly flirty manner in which Aliya says that causes Aly to blush.

Clearing her throat embarrassedly, Aly presses on. “So that was when you fell for me? When I let you stalk me at Worlds?”

“No.” 

Aly raises an eyebrow. “But you just said…”

Furrowing her brow, Aliya takes some time to gather the right words. “Yes. And no. It is this moment I fall. But also other moments. Many moments.”

Her hand still tucked in Aliya’s, Aly squeezes it to signal for the other girl to go on. “What do you mean?” 

Aliya levels her gaze at Aly. She looks deep into those soft brown eyes the way only she can, like nothing and no one’s ever mattered more to her. It’s a gaze that reaches out and grips Aly fiercely by the heart.

“Hard to say. Every day since, I fall. Fall more, fall harder. It is always a surprise.” A warm memory causes a smile to spread across Aliya’s face. “I not know I will fall for you again the first time I hear you speak very bad Russian. In London. But this is what happens.”

Aly chuckles. “Ruining your language made you fall for me even more?”

“Yes.” 

“When else?”

“When I try teach you triple Y turn. And you fall, on your face.”

Shaking her head, Aly doesn’t know whether to laugh or mount a counterattack. The teasing look on Aliya’s face is infuriating. And really hot. “You’re crazy. You know that?”

Moving forward so the inside edges of their knees touch, Aliya slides one hand over Aly’s waist, tugging her in closer. Leaning down, she presses her lips against Aly’s neck, drawing her skin into the heat of her mouth. Aliya breathes in her intoxicating scent, enjoying feeling the American shudder against her, feeling the beating of her pulse under her lips. “It is not crazy to fall,” Aliya whispers, “when I do this.” 

“Aliya…” Aly has to use both hands to steady herself against the couch, caught by the sudden intensity of the moment.

“And this.” Aliya kisses the edge of Aly’s jawline. “This…” she plants an impassioned kiss on Aly’s left cheek, before finally claiming her lips. “And this also.” It takes every scrap of the Russian’s self-discipline to hold back the growing tide of desire sweeping through her. “This is when I fall for you.”

Fearing the pounding of her heart might just be enough to break her ribcage, Aly somehow manages in between quickened breaths, “Do you know… when I fell for you?”

Aliya draws back, looking at Aly with curiosity and more love than she knew was possible. “When?”

“This moment. Just now.” Aly can hardly breathe. The weight of her words pains her, constricts her chest. Even what little distance there is between them feels too far. “I fell for you. For the millionth time.” 

She needs Aliya. She needs her, _now_.

Words can tell of wars, shape the past and predict the future. But sometimes words only ever do injustice to a moment. They can never carry, for instance, the moment two souls give themselves over to the feverish, wonderfully disorienting, existence-obliterating kind of love many dream of and few find.

This being one of those moments, Aliya Mustafina simply takes Aly Raisman into her arms. To tell her, over and over again, exactly when it was she fell for her.

This time, without using any words at all.

 


End file.
